


Reunion

by armsofthestorm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Post-Order 66, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armsofthestorm/pseuds/armsofthestorm
Summary: In the early years after Order 66 and the Rise of the Empire, Rex is in a seedy bar somewhere on the Outer Rim, waiting for a member of a rebel group to make contact. The very last person he expects to see is Bail Organa-- but there he is, and here they are.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leechbrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leechbrain/gifts).



Rex is in a grimy bar on some Outer Rim backwater when he sees Bail Organa again for the first time since before the end of the war. It’s about the last place he’d ever expect to see someone like Bail, with his money and titles and political connections, so he doesn’t recognise him at first— he just notices that the tall, broad-shouldered stranger at the other end of the bar has unusually upright posture for this part of the galaxy, where locals and visitors alike tend to be beaten down enough by life that standing proudly seems somewhat beside the point. On any other night Rex thinks he might slide up next to the man along the bar, ask to buy him a drink and see where the evening leads, but here’s here tonight on business, waiting for someone from a rebel group to make contact, so he just stays in his seat, casting about the dim interior of the bar looking for anyone whose appearance might announce them to be a rebel liaison.

Hiss eyes settle back on the stranger, whose form looks somewhat familiar now he comes to think of it— probably someone he served with. Not for long, otherwise he’d recognise him better, but part of one of the civilian militias they’d trained, maybe, or someone he’d met on a mission.

He has an impression of a well-dressed, handsome man, but it isn’t until the man turns and Rex catches a sliver of a glimpse of his profile, and Rex does a visible double take— could the man really be Bail Organa?

Rex looks back down at the drink in front of him, and then at Bail, who is now looking in his general direction, thinking fast. Bail wouldn’t be here on his own business, would he, so the question was, what _did_ bring him here? And is it a coincidence that he’s here at the same moment Rex is? Is he perhaps the rebel contact Rex is supposed to be meeting? Rex has thought for some time that Bail Organa must be behind one of the rebel groups that have appeared in the past few years— given his leanings it would only make sense that Bail would take on a nascent rebellion against the Empire as one of his many project, and besides, what money they have must be coming from somewhere. In addition, he’s all but certain from things he’s heard here and there that Mon Mothma is involved, and she and Bail were allies in the Senate.

All this being said, it would make far less sense that someone who was in all likelihood a leader in the movement would come to this hole to rendezvous with a mere foot soldier. Or field agent, as he supposed he was now. Not that Bail had ever made him feel like a mere foot soldier even when his official reason for existing was probably written down on some official document somewhere as whatever “battledroid fodder” translated to in bureaucrat-speak. 

So absorbed in thought is Rex that he forgets one of the cardinal rules of survival for the life he leads— keep aware of your surroundings— and someone manages to approach without his notice.

A hand lays itself on his left shoulder. “Rex?” says a quiet voice, quite near to his ear.

“Bail?” Rex says, leaping to stand and face the man, half expecting it not to be Bail at all, but some stranger who somehow knows the name he hasn’t gone by publicly for nigh on two and a half years.

Thankfully, the stranger is no assassin or Imperial agent, but Bail Organa in the flesh— more worn than when Rex had last seen him, darker shadows beneath the eyes and cheekbones a little hollower, and in far plainer clothing—but unmistakeable in both bearing and appearance.

“At your service,” Bail says with an incline of his head and a warm smile.

Rex doesn’t know what to say. He clasps one of Bail’s hands in between his own, as if to make sure this that he’s really there, and then blurts out gracelessly: “what are you doing here?”

Bail laughs and brings him in for a hug, clapping him on the back. “Same as you.”

He pulls Rex over to a corner of the room nearer the speakers blasting out some kind of thumping dance beat, and he turns to look at Rex quite seriously. “I arranged the meeting, of course— or, well, I was asked to assign an operative, but then I saw the picture and name on your file.” He has to yell to make himself heard over the music even standing right next to each other but at least it means Rex is comfortable they won’t be heard by anyone else.

“You decided to come yourself.” Rex feels his chest tighten a little at the thought.

Bail nods. “I had no idea you were alive or— until last week, otherwise I would have arranged a meeting sooner.” Rex feels his chest tighten further, but he pushes the feeling aside. There are some things he just prefers not to think about.

“It’s good to see you,” Rex offers, in lieu of anything enlightening to say about the state of the galaxy that’s brought them together again in these circumstances, or anything that might suture the great gaping wounds that such a present and unavoidable reminder of the past tears open, but he hopes it might at least clear the tension in the air.

“It’s good to see you too,” Bail replies, managing to sound both sincere and subdued, quite a feat when you had to yell to be heard over the thumping bass line playing from the speakers directly next to them. They’re both quiet for a few moments, as contemplative as it’s possible to be in this kind of setting.

“You should come back to my ship,” Bail says, moving in suggestively and leaning down a little to speak directly into Rex’s ear. Rex knows what he’s angling for— anyone looking at them will assume that Bail his picking him up, and no-one will look twice as they leave together. Not that they would have anyway; one of the benefits of shady bars on Rim worlds is that hardly anyone ever looks twice at you unless you owe them money, or they’ve been hired by someone you owe money. Rex grins, makes a show of looking Bail up and down, nods teasingly and pulls Bail through the beings milling about on the edge of the dance floor.

“You’ll remember the ship, I think” Bails says, as they exit the bar into the relative quiet of the street at night. “The Naboo star skiff.”

“Remember her?” Rex says, smiling as a flood of recollections come to him all at once. “Mate, I still dream about her sometimes. Haven’t had a smoother jump to hyperspace before or since.”

Rex glances back at Bail, who grins flirtatiously “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“I’d never compliment someone’s ship just to try and pick them up,” Rex says indignantly, first wondering how on earth he hadn’t picked up on the innuendo before he just went and said something like that, and then remembering the Duros mechanic he’d bedded only months earlier using that exact tactic— and her ship had been a heap of garbage, really. “At least, I wouldn’t lie about how I feel about that J-type.”

“Well, I said you’d recognise he, but she does look a little different these days,” Bail says. “She wasn’t low profile enough— or well armed enough, frankly— for my purposes, so I had some modifications done.” 

Rex nods. “There’s a bit of that going around, I’m sure.”

“The shipyard isn’t far away,” Bail says. “Just around that corner.”

They walk in silence the rest of the way there; Rex thinks both of them need a bit of a break from talking while they each adjust to the fact of each others’ presences now the shock of the first meeting is starting to wear off.

The shipyard around the corner is small, only a short row of ships on one edge of an empty lot, ringed with barbed wire and what looks like some kind of jury-rigged security system around the perimeter. Rex can’t pick out Bail’s J-type at first, but then he sees just the barest shadow of a sleek and familiar profile under the damage of what looks like more than a few space battles as well as some fairly serious artillery.

He whistles. “You weren’t joking about the modifications,” he says to Bail, who is fiddling with a swipe card at the gate to the shipyard. 

Bail smiles grimly, and the gate opens. “Nope.”

They make their way over to the ship, which looks not so much like it’s owned be a very wealthy Senator as it does like it’s owned by a down on his luck crime lord. The gleaming chrome of the original paintwork has been replaced by a much duller finish in plain durasteel, ornamented only by laser burns and rough welded seams, and the delicacy of the original body is all but unrecognisable beneath the new gun towers and massive laser cannons.

As Bail leads him to the door, which is dark grey and heavily scratched up, he feels his heart sink. Bail had always seemed like the kind of man who could go about his business is exactly the manner he desired, galactic upheaval be damned— during the Clone Wars at least, that had been true— but if even he’s sneaking around the fringes now— where did that leave everyone else.

Then the door lifts with a discordant clanking sound, to reveal an interior that looks as untouched by the passage of time as Rex looks the worse for it.

Bail turns to look at him, and he must see the expression on his face, because he grins and says: “I told you you’d recognise her. And she still runs as well as ever.”

“I was worried for a minute there,” says Rex as they make their way up the boarding ramp. “But your good taste is obviously— what’s the word— unassailable.”

“As it should be,” Bail replies. “I’ve always held that we have to take our pleasures where we can find them. Especially in troubled times.”

Bail knows he doesn’t need to bother showing him around, so the door closes behind them with more of its tuneless clanking as they make their way to the cabin— Rex’s earlier assessment of pristine, unchanged aestheticism was right on— even the new door which Rex guesses leads to one of the added gunneries is chosen to match the original, very tasteful and elegant, fit-out.

Once in the cabin, Bail discards his cloak, hanging it on a hook by the cabin door, unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt, and sits down in one of the soft chairs in the small living space to the side of the pilots’ chairs.

Bail closes his eyes and sinks into his chair, and Rex takes the opportunity to admire him relaxed, and in proper lighting. This is what he’s been trying very hard not to think about since he realised who, exactly, Bail was back at the bar— that Bail remains a very attractive man, and that Rex is still as hopelessly drawn to him as he ever was.

Bail opens his eyes after only a few brief moments in repose, and Rex thinks he must surely feel his eyes on him, but if he does, he certainly doesn’t show it. Instead, he grins and asks if Rex would like a drink. When Rex nods, he pulls the little liquor cabinet out of the wall beside him and pours them both a measure of what Rex is certain is very fine brandy.

“To reunions,” he says, raising his glass.

Rex clinks his own tumbler to Bail’s, and they drink. The silence between them grows heavier then, as Rex contemplates how the evening will progress from this point onwards. He wonders if Bail is debating the same thing— whether they continue on with this charade of rebel business that needs attending to, or they turn the evening into something altogether more personal and leave the rebellion for later.

For all that Rex knows that trying to bring down the Empire is important, for all that he knows it’ll likely be the great undertaking of the rest of his life, he hopes it’s the latter. It’s been far too long since he’s seen a familiar face on anything but wanted posters and moreover, Rex thinks that he and Bail have a certain amount of unfinished business lying between them that Rex would like to clear the air of before they start working together, if that;s what’s going to happen.

During the period of their acquaintance, Rex had had firm suspicions that their attraction was mutual, although neither of them had ever made a move to act on it, and it is a similar kind of tension he feels in the air now, only tempered by sadness that their reunion has been so long in coming, as well as remembrance of all they have lost in the interim.

Rex looks at Bail over the top of his glass, considering, and Bail looks right back at him, the expression on his face almost wistful.

There is another key difference between then and now, Rex realises. Back then Bail wouldn’t have slept with someone who was to all intents and purposes under his command, and Rex would hardly proposition his commanding officer, however unusual the circumstances he found himself in. Certainly, pretending to be Bail’s date for a fancy diplomatic ball on Chandrila in the middle of a galaxy-wide war counted as unusual circumstances, even if he was only really there for protection and so some of Bail’s political colleagues could have the novelty of talking to an actual clone commander.

Still, the night had been warm, Bail had looked every inch the prince in his rich fabrics and well-cut robes, and the very presence Bail’s hand on his lower back as he escorted him around the party had almost been enough to make Rex, hardened veteran of some of the bloodiest battles of the war to that date, weak at the knees.

Rex had seen Bail’s eyes on him often enough that first mission— first the once-over the very first moment they met, where Bail’s gaze seemed to linger almost involuntarily over the breadth of his shoulders and definition of his waist beneath the plain clothes he was wearing, then at the fitting for Rex’s dress uniform, and countless times in between then and the actual ball.

For his own part, Rex is sure that he had been doing more or less the same thing, hardly able to tear his eyes away from Bail’s elegant hands, or the curve of his jaw, or even his shapely backside, and utterly unable not to be charmed by the easy grace of his bearing.

They had met again several times during the war, though none in as pleasant circumstances as the first time on Chandrila, and the dance had continued in more or less the same vein, neither of them willing to make the first move. And this was going to be the end of that, Rex decided a moment later. They’d been at this long enough, after all. They’d lost enough. As Bail himself had said earlier, these days more than ever they should take their happiness where they could find it.

“I—” Rex starts, and this is when his breath fails him, for how could you say something out loud that had been sitting unspoken for so long, after everything that had brought you together had crumbled to dust.

“Pardon?” asks Bail, gaze drifting back to Rex from where it had wandered off to the other side of the room. Rex starts to wonder if he’s miscalculated horribly.

“Nothing,” he says, draining his glass. “Just thinking about the first time we met compared to where we are now.”

“Hmm.” Bail smiles. “Chandrila was a good time. Never thought I’d miss the war after it was over, but the galaxy under our new Emperor is even less pleasant than I had feared.”

“At least we thought we had a chance of winning, then,” says Rex, not at all sure he likes the turn the conversation is taking but unable to think of an appropriate change in subject. “At least we could fight in the open.”

Bail looks sad and much, much older. “We can win this fight too,” he says. “There’s always hope.”

Rex nods. “I know.” He knows he believes it, deep down somewhere underneath all the long worn-in cynicism, but he’s sure the lack of conviction behind

“Did I tell you Breha and I have a daughter now?” asks Bail, his eyes lighting up.

“No,” says Rex. “Congratulations. How did you—”

“She’s Padmé’s child,” Bail says, anticipating the question. “One of Padmé’s children. I’m sure you know she died at about the same time the Emperor took the throne, but she left behind two children, and Obi-Wan entrusted the care of the girl to me.”

“General Kenobi survived Order 66?” Rex says. He had been going to say something about the children— Anakin’s children, a voice in his head reminds him— but the apparent resurrection of a Jedi Master he had believed to be deader than several doornails disrupts his train of thought entirely. Oh, Cody, he thinks.

Bail looks up at him, eyes wide. “You didn’t know?”

Rex’s expression must say it all, because Bail puts a hand on his knee and looks at him kindly.

“Cody will be— would be so pleased,” Rex manages. He knows what Order 66 was, what it did to the Jedi and to the clones that carried it out— he has nightmares sometimes of killing Anakin and every time he awakes in a cold sweat, thanking every single one of his lucky stars that it had never come to that for him. “I always told him his aim wasn’t as good as he thought it was.”

“I told you all hope wasn’t lost,” he said. “If Obi-Wan Kenobi survives, and the children of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala do, and there are people willing to fight, then we have an excess of it, even.”

Rex’s throat had started to tighten dangerously at the twin revelations of well— Padmé’s twins, and Obi-Wan’s continued existence, but at Bail’s words his eyes start to water and he can’t remember what he ought to be doing with his hands. He blinks back the tears furiously, not wanting to appear too easily rattled, and casts about for a place to put his glass down, just to have something to do.

“I’m sorry, says Bail, and he moves off his chair to kneel at Rex’s feet, taking Rex’s hands in his own. “I’m sorry, I realise now that it’s a lot to take in.”

“No, don’t apologise,” says Rex. “Thank you. I haven’t had good news in— oh, far too long.”

He realises belatedly that he can’t keep his tears at bay and hold up his end of the conversation at the same time, and he can’t work out what happens first— the tears that he can’t contain starting to run freely down his face, or Bail gathering him in his arms. As Rex starts to cry in earnest, it’s almost as if he’s a spectator to his own body, movement strange and sluggish and his emotions well beyond control. Bail cups the side of his face with one hand and wipes away the tears with his thumb, his gaze very kind. His other hand rubs soothing circles into the small of Rex’s back, and Rex lets himself relax into Bail’s embrace, clutching helplessly at his shoulders and hoping that wherever this outburst has come from, it leaves quickly as quickly as it’s come on.

Then Bail kisses him on the mouth, and Rex returns to his body, to the heat of the moment. Bail’s mouth moves against his, hot and slick, and if either of them can taste the salt of Rex’s tears then neither pays it any mind. Rex finds himself with one hand at the small of Bail’s back, trying to pull him in even closer, and the other clutching at the back of his neck, stroking at the short hair there and gently moving Bail’s head to get a more comfortable angle.

“You’re alright,” Bail says as he pulls back, sounding unsure as to whether it’s a statement of fact or a reassurance. Rex tries to smile but he thinks it probably comes out looking more like he’s in pain.

“I know,” he says, feeling the tears drying on his face already, and hoping that Bail doesn’t stop kissing him long enough for the embarrassment about losing control like that to set in. “I don’t know what that was. I don’t normally—”

“My mother would have told me it was good to let it out,” Bail says, and he looks like he might continue, so Rex kisses him again, manoeuvring them so that Bail is seated once more and Rex is straddling his lap, feeling Bail’s body move under his and enjoying each little reaction his touch can elicit.

“Oh, you have no idea how good it feels to finally be able to kiss you,” Bail says, after this particularly passionate interlude. He groans as Rex kisses him deeply again, then draws away.

“I think I have some idea,” says Rex, who is panting slightly and can already feel himself hardening in his trousers. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Bail acknowledges his point with a peck on the lips. “We’re not going to get anything else done tonight, are we?” he asks, sounding only a little rueful.

“I hope not,” says Rex. There are things they’ll need to talk about, certainly, and they will actually need to get back to the business of rebellion at some stage, but for now, he’s perfectly happy to let Bail, murmuring “excellent” against his lips, get them both off the chair and walk them into the ship’s bedroom, kissing and groping the whole way.


End file.
